The Chief Minister's Office of Assam on Thursday, 18 June 2026 shared commentary advocating for Europe and Japan as India's next partners under the Act East Policy, signalling a broadening of the country's eastern engagement strategy beyond its traditional ASEAN-centric focus.

Context

The post, captioned 'Europe and Japan: India's Next Act East Partners', amplifies a policy argument that India's outreach to its east need not be confined to Southeast Asian neighbours. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has consistently positioned his state as a frontline stakeholder in India's Act East agenda, given its geographic proximity to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the broader Indo-Pacific corridor.

The Act East Policy was formally launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, upgrading the earlier Look East Policy of 1991 with sharper strategic and connectivity dimensions. Its core premise is that India's Northeastern states serve as the natural land bridge to East and Southeast Asia.

Policy Backdrop

Japan has been a foundational partner in this architecture. The India-Japan Act East Forum, established in 2017, coordinates infrastructure development across Northeastern states, covering roads, bridges, and industrial corridors. Japanese investment has flowed into projects aligned with the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, a flagship connectivity initiative in which Assam is a critical node.

Europe's inclusion as a proposed Act East partner reflects a newer strand of thinking. The India-EU Strategic Partnership was upgraded in 2020, with renewed emphasis on trade, digital infrastructure, and green energy cooperation. Bringing the European Union into the Act East framework would expand the policy's geographic and thematic scope well beyond its original mandate.

Stakeholders and Impact

Northeastern states, particularly Assam, stand to gain most directly from any expansion of Act East partnerships. Increased Japanese and European engagement could translate into fresh infrastructure funding, technology transfers, and market access for the region's agricultural and industrial output.

Japanese investors already active in the Northeast would benefit from a more formalised multilateral framework, while European businesses — especially in clean energy, logistics, and manufacturing — could find new entry points into India's supply-chain corridors. The argument also dovetails with India's broader supply-chain resilience strategy, which seeks to reduce dependence on any single trade partner.

What's Next

Analysts will watch outcomes from India-Japan annual summit discussions on Northeast connectivity and the progress of ongoing EU-India trade and investment agreement negotiations for concrete signals. If both partnerships deepen simultaneously, the Act East Policy could evolve from a bilateral-and-ASEAN framework into a genuinely multilateral Indo-Pacific engagement strategy.

For Assam and the wider Northeast, the stakes are high: a broader Act East umbrella means more diplomatic bandwidth, more infrastructure investment, and a stronger case for the region as India's eastern economic gateway rather than its periphery.